Faust's Commandment

It was even worse than Twilight had expected. Even from a distance and up in the air, Ponyville was a town of broken hovels and burnt shells. Twilight's escort had to descend earlier than they were supposed to because of the residual smoke in the air, so that alone spoke to the devastation the Prophet had brought.

They couldn't just land in the center of town, either; and the survivors were on the grassy fields near Sweet Apple Acres, so Twilight directed her escort to settle down on the outskirts. The guards were silent and efficient, bringing supply crates out of their chariots with no complaints.

When Twilight's own chariot landed and rolled to a stop, she hopped out and swept her way to the front. Twilight was moderately armored with deep purple plate armor, leaving a space in her midriff and calves.

“I'll need ten volunteers,” Twilight announced, turning to her troops. “They'll come with me and accost the Prophet.”

Many hands went up, and Twilight selected the first ten to do so. “The rest of you, see to the survivors!”

While the other guards busied off to the nearby camp, Twilight turned again, and let her eyes linger on the stumps of buildings left in Ponyville. Her armored skirt clinked together with every whistle of wind coming from the smoldering ruins.

It hurt to look for too long. Twilight felt her eyes get hot with grief and fury. Who would just waltz into a town and start destroying things willy nilly? A psycho, that's who. He'd better not have killed any of her closest friends.

Speaking of which, they were only a mile or two away, so Twilight turned away with heartache and ushered her small contingent forward.

It wasn't long before they came to the first few ponies lying in the grass. They weren't any familiar faces, and Twilight figured her friends would be in the barn, so she pressed on.

The ponies cluttering up the fields became denser and denser, and Twilight found her pace slowed as she and her troops had to maneuver through the growing crowd. Twilight gazed into the destitute eyes of many ponies that she only barely recognized, and couldn't give more than a passing smile of reassurance.

Sweet Apple Acres loomed in the distance, but it grew larger as she kept walking. Her ears rang with hushed, respectful conversation as she came closer, but also contained the sounds of sobbing and sniffles. The ponies she recognized grew in number: she passed Derpy, Bon Bon and Lyra, Octavia and Vinyl, Button Mash, Doctor Hooves, and Mrs. Cheerilee, amidst a whimpering huddle of foals and fillies that gazed with wonder at the regal princess in their midst. Twilight could only spare a few glances, however.

Finally, she came to the edge of the acres themselves. She passed the fence, walked through a row of apple trees, and finally came to the enormous Apple barn.

Busying around a table in front of the barn doors was Applejack. Her small clothes were torn and dirtied. Her signature wide-brimmed hat was nowhere to be seen, and her golden hair was bedraggled and out of shape. With every step, she winced, and when she bent her back to examine the spare barrels of cider on the table, she hissed and straightened.

“Applejack,” Twilight greeted soberly.

The farm girl turned to her and let out a sigh of relief. “Yer here. C'mon, help.”

“You're hurt,” Twilight noted, coming to her side. The troops remained stiffly in place.

“Yep,” Applejack growled with pain. “Not as bad as th’ others, though.”

“Where are they?”

“In the barn. Did th’ best Ah could, but some things're beyond ma skills.”

Twilight's eyes drifted to the barn, her face pulled with concern. “I'll get a medic.” Then she lit her horn and vanished.

It only took a minute or so to find one on the plains, a white unicorn with short maroon hair and a red cross on his armored flank. When she reappeared with him in tow, the medic hurried to the barn doors and ponderously opened them.

“You gonna take a look?” Applejack asked, then coughed heavily.

“I need to destroy the Prophet first,” Twilight replied. “Did he leave? He might still be around.”

Applejack spread her arms. “Ah haven't paid much attention ta where he mighta gone. I've been focused on helpin’ the survivors. Givin’ em a place ta stay.”

“Does anypony know?” Twilight urged, coming to the opposite side of the cider table. “Come on, there's got to be somepony that saw where he went. If he's disappeared, we're toast.”

“Why in Equestria would he stick around?” Applejack theoretically asked. She tried to lift a barrel of cider, then winced and set it down, clutching her groin. “Don’ worry!” she quickly cut off. “Jus’ got hit hard there, that's all.”

“You what?” Twilight whispered, coming beside Applejack and putting an arm around her waist. “Somepony landed a hit on you?”

“Ah gave as good as Ah got, but Twi, he's jus’...” The look in Applejack's eyes said everything.

And it made a sliver of fear rise within Twilight too.

A flare of light in the corner of Twilight's vision made her swivel in place. Out there in the distance, by the Everfree tree line, there was a shimmering hundred-foot beacon of silvery-turquoise light.

“...That's the same color as the Prophet's flames!” Applejack realized, pointing at the beacon.

“He wants us to find him,” Twilight deduced, narrowing her eyes.

“Is it a trap?” Applejack proposed.

“...No,” Twilight decided. She broke from Applejack’s side and took a few steps towards it. “If the Prophet wanted to trap us, he'd lure us into the Everfree and pick us off. But he's making no attempt to hide. He's confident that he can take us.”

“Us?” Applejack mildly asked.

“Me and the guards,” Twilight laid down. She turned back to her friend. “Applejack, I know you don't want to leave my side, but there's little you can do, even if you aren't in this condition. Help the citizens. Look after the rest of your friends.”

“Friends stick together,” Applejack maintained. “An’ Ah don’ want ya facing that demon alone.”

“Applejack,” Twilight softly said, extending a light violet finger. “Stay here. You know I'm being honest. And I can order it as a princess if you insist.”

Applejack's gaze remained firm. But her eyes drifted to the mass of faraway ponies stranded outside Sweet Apple Acres, and she relented with a sigh. “Don' throw yer life away.”

Twilight nodded with resolution, then turned to her guard of ten, who had also noticed the beacon.

“Fall in,” Twilight ordered. “To the beacon.”

Peter was sitting cross-legged on a flat white stone about a foot off the ground. He sat in the center of a pillar of flickering divine light that stretched far above him.

His wooden mask was on, his mind prepared. Peter had seen Twilight land in the distance across town, and had given her some time to do business before sending up the beacon. From then on, there wouldn't be much time.

Sure enough, the flapping of wings made Peter incline his head. Two lines of five anthropomorphic pegasi descended from a low altitude and landed fifty feet away from him. They spread out and began to encircle him. Even as they leveled their spears so Peter was now sitting in a circle of blades, Peter made no movement.

Then there was a teleportation pop, and Peter was grateful he had his mask on; he had been surprised.

Princess Twilight Sparkle swooped down, hovered briefly, and landed in front of Peter on the rock, her expression hardened. Finally, the two of them were face to face.

Peter inclined his head. "Hi."

Twilight's fists clenched. "Prophet. Human. Your actions have led to the deaths of hundreds and the destruction of Ponyville."

"I'm aware," Peter said.

“Why?” Twilight almost snarled.

Peter clasped his hands. “Because I was chosen to. The Goddess Faust has held off on this option for long enough. But Equestria has no respect for the divine gift of creation, so it will be visited with destruction.”

“What are you talking about?” Twilight incredulously prodded, gesturing at the ruins. “My friends didn't deserve to lose everything! If you have a problem with this world, you take it up with me!”

“Twilight,” Peter quietly said. “You don't rule this world. Faust does.”

“Faust is irrelevant,” Twilight shut down. “This is between you and me. You took away everything! My home, my memories, our safety!”

“You'll find that there's a lot more that can be taken away from you,” Peter said. “Twilight, I've… heard that you held special rooms in your castle where awful things would happen. That you're an adulterer with multiple different ponies.”

“Adultery?” Twilight asked, confused. “Why does that make us deserve this?”

Peter breathed through his nose with repressed anger and clenched his fists. “No explanation I give will satisfy you. But I'll try. Twilight, these sexual sins everypony revels in are harming Equestria's future. It's made you weak and doughy, and it's led to disgusting and evil things.”

Twilight, after a moment of shock, found words. “Excuse me? So you're saying we're too horny to live?”

Peter gestured. “Your perversion of nature takes the magic away from a divine gift and has led to decay and ruin. I have come to give one last warning.”

“We're not taking the magic away! We're making the most of it!” Twilight objected, moving slightly closer. “Human, I don't know what the world you came from looks like, but surely there are people there that think like we do. Haven't you seen what their lives look like? How fulfilled the people are?”

“I have,” Peter conceded. “But the people back home aren't fulfilled either, and the same fate awaits them too if they don't repent.”

“It's none of your business what ponies do with their sexuality.”

“The well-being of society is none of my business,” Peter dryly said. He declined his head so it was obvious he was glaring through the mask. “And here I thought Pinkie was the funny one.”

“So you would kill many more ponies if your God directed you to?”

“She is your God too,” Peter clarified. “And yes, I would. I would be saving countless lives yet to be born. I would preserve their innocence and agency.”

"And you show no remorse for your actions?"

Peter rose from his seat on the stone, and he stared Twilight dead in the eye. "Do you?"

"Not for what I'll do for my friends," Twilight defied.

"Nor me for what I do for Faust," Peter finished.

Twilight's eyes seemed to blaze right as her horn also came afire. "Your work for Faust ends here and now!"

The guards surrounding Peter closed in.

Instantly, Peter's eyes also flashed blue-white.

The shafts of every suddenly-dropped spear and halberd immediately caught on fire. The Royal Guard quickly drew the swords at their sides, and just as quickly dropped them too. The lengths of their swords had drooped down and melted like warm marshmallows. Pieces of white-hot steel dripped onto the grass.

"No," Peter denied. He hadn't even moved. "I still have work to do."

The very earth trembled underfoot at his words. Every guard noticed it. As it grew, every face turned frightful.

Twilight recovered from her fear first. She flapped into the air and enveloped Peter completely in pink magic.

And suddenly Peter's entire body ignited into silvery-turquoise flames. So too did Twilight's horn, since the flames were still touching Twilight's magic.

Twilight screamed and cut her magic off, quickly massaging her burnt horn. She swiveled her head, quickly assessing the scene. Several ruptures in the earth had been made under the guard's feet already. They had been trapped in the earth, but not killed.

Peter, meanwhile, stayed precisely where he was, staring at Twilight with firm intensity.

It allowed him to see the incoming magic blast, which he blocked with a wave of his hand. He did the same to the next three bolts, and for the fifth one, he actually caught it and sent it into the earth, throwing up dirt in an eruption.

Twilight reared her head. A violet crystal three times bigger than a person sprouted from the rock beneath Peter's feet and enveloped him completely like ice. Peter was trapped, motionless, in the crystal, preserved like a bug in amber.

And then cracks in the crystal spidered from Peter's position, reaching the outside surface. The cracks glowed bright blue, then shattered the crystal like glass, scattering all over the plain.

As soon as Peter was revealed again, Twilight fired a steady laser blast that impacted Peter's palms and ricocheted into the ground, carving a jagged scar into the earth. The laser’s impact point soon turned blue, and the blue traveled up the pink laser to Twilight's horn, blasting at the tip and scorching it again.

As Twilight recovered, Peter switched off the beacon’s light and hopped off the stone. He sprinted for the tree line, keeping his defenses up.

But when he passed the first tree, he heard Twilight’s imploring voice.

“You said you were chosen to do this?” Twilight called. “So you wouldn't have done this if it weren't for Faust? She's the reason you slew all those ponies! Her decisions aren't yours!”

Peter slowly halted and turned his head back to regard Twilight. She was atop the stone now, reaching out a hand to him, who had almost disappeared into the forest.

“You don't have to go down this path,” Twilight continued, softer this time. “You can choose your own actions. You shouldn't be anypony's pawn… You should be their friend.”

Peter didn't say anything. He just looked back at Twilight through the foliage.

Then he turned back around and sprinted into the dark forest. Her words echoed in his mind the entire way back.